Latest news with #Lankesh
The Hindu
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
On P Lankesh's Pallavi and the female perspective
The 16th edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes) this year, included the screening of films restored from 35mm film clips preserved by the National Film Development Chamber-National Film Archives of India (NFDC-NFAI). Among these was Pallavi (1976), writer-journalist P Lankesh's first film, which won three national awards. In his autobiography Huli Mavina Mara (A Sour Mango Tree,1977), P Lankesh recalls that he was driven by an inexplicable passion to create Pallavi, not withstanding his lack of prior experience with the medium. Pallavi was made against all odds, including Emergency being declared on the first day of shooting. 'We had chosen June 26, 1975, to start shooting, but that was the very day that Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency,' Lankesh writes. 'Jayaprakash Narayan, George Fernandes, Madhu Limaye, and many other leaders were arrested. My engagement with a film at such a time seemed like a hypocritical escape from the critical reality of the day.' Based on his novella Biruku (The Crack, 1967), Pallavi is about a young couple and how they deal with material success and failure (the woman succeeds, her boyfriend fails) and how it tears them apart. Deep dive Pallavi features the student aspirations of an egalitarian socialistic society, their activism, and the impending trauma of unemployment, themes characteristic of films in the '70s, as well as the striving of women for freedom in a male-dominated society. Lankesh records the financial and emotional crisis he was going through in the early '70s in his memoir. When he decided to make a film, most of his friends, who had earlier promised to support him, backed out. Lankesh went ahead nevertheless, registering its title with the Information and Publicity Department and selling his house in Shivamogga for ₹1,25,000 to raise funds for the project. Produced by Lankesh's wife, Indira, Pallavi won three national awards — Second Best Feature Film, Best Feature Film in Kannada and Best Direction. Shot by S Ramachandra, a favourite of alternative cinema makers, it had TN Seetharam and Vimala Naidu playing the protagonists. Renowned sarod maestro, Rajiv Taranath, scored the music for Pallavi. Fits and starts Lankesh confesses that he felt like an illiterate upstart at the beginning of the venture. 'I didn't know where to start, even though I knew the film medium has a grammar of its own. I was determined, and S Ramachandra (cinematographer) helped me.' 'The film was allowed to run tax-free for two weeks after its release. We sought an extension of this privilege but Finance Minister, M Y Ghorpade, rejected our plea.' In his book Nenapina Putagalu, TN Seetharam who plays the protagonist in Pallavi, recalls how Lankesh asked cameraman Tom Cowan whether he passed the screen test. When Tom answered in the affirmative, Lankesh announced him as the hero. Seetharaman says though he had misgivings about his ability to play the role, given his common place looks, Lankesh had said, 'I only want someone like you. Your bandy legs, your struggle to speak English — these will suit the character well. I want my characters to suffer from an inferiority complex.' According to Seetharam, cameraman Ramachandra concurred with Lankesh. Political leader CM Ibrahim was to play a role and was present for the first two days of shooting. However, on the third day, he was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) and jailed. Lankesh stepped into the role in his stead. About the public's reception of Pallavi, Lankesh wrote, 'People appreciated the film when it was shown on Doordarshan. Writers such as RK Narayan as well as British film critics expressed a high opinion of the film. They saw it as breaking accepted film grammar through its disjointed editing and a distinctive characterisation occurring as a result.' Political connect Former MLC and culture promoter Kondajji Mohan, who produced P Lankesh's Ellindalo Bandavaru, says, 'My meeting with Lankesh occurred under strange circumstances. Encouraged by the success of the DMK in using cinema to promote its ideology in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) decided to follow suit. Jayapal Menon was charged with the production of film to serve such a purpose and my association with SFI (The CPM youth wing) saw me become the managing director of Navashakti Films Private Limited in 1980. Jayapal was keen on Lankesh as director going by the success of Pallavi.' According to N Vidyashankar, artistic director of BIFFes, Kondajji was instrumental in securing a no-objection certification to screen Pallavi at the film festival. In Ee Naraka-Ee Pulaka (This Hell and the Excitement), a collection of articles on films published in 2009, Lankesh remarks: 'In the late seventies, my friends from Kerala associated with CPI(M) founded Navashakti Films Private Limited and procured new-wave films that dealt with social issues. They asked for rights of Pallavi from me. I was facing a serious financial crisis and sold the film for ₹25,000. By that time, Pallavi had won three national awards, and I got ₹1.25 lakhs. I repaid the debt borrowed for producing the film, and I did not anticipate any benefit from the film.' 'When the film was screened on Doordarshan, it received unprecedented popularity and rave reviews. My Communist friends from Kerala, who bought films including Pallavi, however, failed in getting their investment back. Navashakti was in a serious crisis. My friends advised me to buy back Pallavi and make money from Doordarshan. I rejected their suggestion and told my Communist friends to take whatever the film could earn.' According to the 1998 edition of the Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, Pallavi was one of three films with direct links to the Navya Movement, a cultural churning in the fine arts scene of Karnataka. British film historian Peter Howie wrote in the International Film Guide (1978): 'Pallavi has some of the flaws common to a film, but is very competent and unswerving in its denunciation of the primitive role still accorded most Indian women.'
The Hindu
04-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Review of anthology The Sour Mango Tree
It is intriguing that P. Lankesh (1935-2000), an iconoclastic modernist Kannada writer and public intellectual, showed little interest in making his works accessible to a wider audience through translation. Unlike his contemporaries U.R. Ananthamurthy and Girish Karnad, who embraced global platforms and saw their works rendered into English, Lankesh, much like his kindred spirit K.P. Purnachandra Tejasvi, chose to be a local cosmopolitan. Lankesh's life and writings, however, undeniably merit a wider reach. Thanks to Nataraj Huliyar and a group of excellent translators, the carefully selected and translated anthology, The Sour Mango Tree, makes for an ideal introduction to Lankesh's oeuvre. The collection features excerpts from his autobiography, Hulimavina Mara (The Sour Mango Tree), two plays, Giliyu Panjaradolilla (The Bird is not in the Cage) and Gunamukha (Recovery), besides select short fiction, prose, and poetry. Lankesh was a politically committed writer who, more often than not, practised what the Greeks called parrhesia — telling truth to power structures. Apart from expressing his thoughts and worldview through works of art, Lankesh actively critiqued his era as the editor of Lankesh Patrike, a weekly tabloid, from 1980 until he died in 2000. The Patrike, a runaway success, became a platform for literary activism, fostering emerging voices such as Huliyar, Sara Aboobacker, B.T. Lalitha Naik, Vaidehi and Banu Mushtaq, among others. Its influence profoundly shaped the sensibilities of an entire generation. Taking caste head-on This anthology includes essays from Lankesh's acclaimed 'Teeke Tippani' (Comments and Notes) column penned for the magazine. Spanning politics, literature, sports, philosophy, and figures such as the Buddha and Ambedkar, these pieces shaped the political consciousness of readers while refashioning Kannada prose as a tool for social criticism. Gandhi and Lohia indeed loom large in the unconscious of Lankesh's writerly life. One standout essay, 'Us and Them', translated with sensitivity by Lankesh's close associate Basavaraj Urs, offers a Gandhian perspective on the Ayodhya and Babri Masjid conflict, written two years before the mosque's demolition. As a Lohiaite socialist, Lankesh grappled with the phenomenology of caste practices. His searing short story 'Muttisikondavaru' (The Touch) confronts untouchability, using illness as a metaphor — where physical affliction mirrors a deeper spiritual decay. Basalinga, a simpleton farmer, gets his ailing left eye operated on by Doctor Thimmappa, who is a Dalit. On learning about the doctor's caste, his mental ailments begin, tortured by the impurity of touch. This story illustrates how caste practices deeply entrenched in Indian ethos become natural essence, overriding reason and rationality. Basalinga's troubled eye cannot see the doctor's expertise but his caste identity. Lankesh's framing of social ills as universal tales of the human condition, in which, he believed, man is inherently evil, reminds one of Saadat Hasan Manto, who transmuted the trauma of Partition into metaphysical irony and dark humour. A female pseudonym too The mastery of this framing is on full display in his play Gunamukha, a tour de force based on Persian emperor Nadir Shah's life in Delhi. The physical illness of the emperor becomes a lens for his mental torment, born of his hubris. When Nadir Shah summons Alavi, a hakim (healer), to treat his ailments, the healer diagnoses the root cause of his illness: the emperor's arrogance that renders him deaf to people's suffering. The way Lankesh dramatises the exchanges between both characters, especially the last scene excerpted so well in this book, remains unmatched in modern Indian theatre. Though Gunamukha could not amass the power of performance in the national theatre, commanding stages like Delhi's Purana Qila, it is no less a classic than Karnad's Tughlaq. Lankesh's prose further illuminates his brilliance, offering fresh perspectives on texts like Babur's Babarnama, Tejasvi's Carvalho, and writers, including Bertolt Brecht. His poetry, too, reads the world and literary classics differently. In one of three poems on Anna Karenina included here, he thus illuminates: Helen and Anna/ Karenina turned/ adultery into love/ shaped yearning into/ a basic emotion. His 'Neelu' poems, short poetic lines composed under a female pseudonym, are arguably naughty but aesthetically appealing and thoughtful. While Lankesh's political outlook inspires us to be critical of our times, his literary corpus makes him one of the masters of Indian literature. His relevance, therefore, compels us to demand comprehensive translations of his works, particularly his autobiography, fiction and Gunamukha. The reviewer, a NIF Translation fellow, teaches English literature at Tumkur University. His forthcoming book is a translation of D.R. Nagaraj's Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination.
The Wire
02-06-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
Key Witness in Gauri Lankesh Murder Case Receives Threats, Complains to Special Court
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Law Key Witness in Gauri Lankesh Murder Case Receives Threats, Complains to Special Court The Wire Staff 48 minutes ago The witness who has been threatened was crucial in identifying the accused and the place where the alleged conspiracy was hatched to murder Lankesh. Gauri Lankesh was shot at her home in September 2017. Photo: PTI Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now New Delhi: An important witness in the case pertaining to the murder of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh has complained to the special court about receiving threats from people who told him not to identify the accused. The witness, a resident of Belagavi received the threats over a phone call on May 28 and submitted a written complaint on the same day, reported Deccan Herald. 'The witness received a phone call where he was threatened not to identify the accused. He filed a complaint before the court. Though he was disturbed and upset, he testified before the court on Thursday,' a source told the newspaper. A copy of the complaint and a memo by the special public prosecutor were submitted to the court. The witness who has been threatened was crucial in identifying the accused and the place where the alleged conspiracy was hatched to murder Lankesh. Well-known journalist and editor Lankesh, a household name for readers in Karnataka because of her sharp writing and bold views, was shot dead at her residence in Bengaluru late on September 5, 2017. She was editor of the weekly Lankesh Patrike – a magazine that has been described as an 'anti-establishment' publication – and had come under attack for her views against the communal politics of the Sangh parivar in Karnataka. The chargesheet in her murder case had said that the assassination was an 'organised crime' carried out by people associated with the Sanatan Sanstha, an extremist right-wing Hindutva organisation. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News Petition in Madhya Pradesh HC Over Communal Coverage of Rape Case in Bhopal When the Supreme Court Echoes Populist Sentiments, It Risks Undermining the Constitution's Voice UP Deputy CM Backs Hindu Rashtra Call at Right-Wing Event in Lucknow US Jury Orders NSO Group to Pay $168 Million in WhatsApp Spyware Case Supreme Court Raps MP Govt for Shielding Police in Custodial Death of Pardhi Youth Agra Muslim Man Murder: Cops Shoot, Arrest Two, Person who Linked Event to Pahalgam Attack Also Held Supreme Court Flags ED's 'Pattern of Allegations Without Any Evidence' After 19-Month Freeze, Modi Signals Thaw with Canada Following Carney's Win Trump's Anti-Bribery Freeze Offers Adani Hope, But No Guarantee of Reprieve, Say US Legal Experts View in Desktop Mode About Us Contact Us Support Us © Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
New Indian Express
12-05-2025
- New Indian Express
Fearless Finalist
The assassination of prominent journalist Gauri Lankesh left the media world and common citizens alike in shock, consequently sparking widespread outrage and concern about journalists' safety in India. Rollo Romig, an American journalist, was one of the concerned, and decided to investigate further. What came of it was I'm on the Hit List (Context; `499), whose status as Pulitzer finalist has reawakened the focus on the issue. 'I was incredibly shocked at the murder, and I wrote an article about the case. But I felt that this was a story with a lot more to say about it,' he recounts, further revealing, 'It was unclear for some time who had murdered her and why, and it took a long time to uncover that. As I dug deeper into the case, I found that she really was an extraordinary and unusual person.' Over the course of the five cumulative years of bringing the book to life, Romig conducted extensive research, travelling to Bengaluru and Karnataka, interviewing diverse people who pored over thousands of pieces of information, along with articles and official documents on the case. 'Gauri's life was complex and moved in a lot of directions. Her parents wrote memoirs because her father was a very famous Kannada journalist, P Lankesh. So I hired a translator,' Romig reveals. Through his investigation, Romig unveiled the complexities of Lankesh's life and work, showcasing her remarkable talent for connecting with people and creating communities. According to him, this ability to build relationships and mobilise people was a hallmark of Lankesh's journalism, and was what made her such a powerful force for change. 'She touched many people. I felt really obliged to look into everything and leave no stone unturned,' stresses Romig. With the recent Pulitzer finalist status being a signature point in the book's impact and significance, Romig hopes that the recognition will help the book spark meaningful conversations about the importance of investigative journalism. 'I hope it'll help the book to reach a wider audience,' he shares, further emphasising, 'Investigative journalism is more important than ever. Just our contemporary reality is so incredibly complex and getting more complex by the minute. We need investigative journalists to uncover what's under the surface'.
The Hindu
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Between a temple town and a metropolis: The inner journeys of Jayant Kaikini
Back in 1976, Jayant Kaikini did not get the research assistant's job he had applied for at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The Kannada writer and lyricist began his recent talk at the same institute, titled My Literary Journey, with the story of how he missed the job. He filled in the application and took the written test needed to get the job, but in a hurry. The reason for this haste? A film written and directed by P. Lankesh, one of his literary heroes, had just been released, and Kaikini scurried from the campus to watch it that afternoon. 'For that afternoon show, he was supposed to be at the theatre, so I wanted to go and meet him after the show,' recalls the award-winning writer at a lecture series called Paraspar, an initiative of IISc's Office of Communications. 'I literally ran to it,' he says, with a smile. Unfortunately, the meeting with Lankesh appears to have left him disappointed. 'My idol, my hero, had already published some of my poems in his magazine, at that time, and I thought he would talk to me about my poems,' recalls Kaikini. Instead, Lankesh asked him about the film, specifically a scene that involved one of the characters running. 'It was like a hotelier asking me if the chutney was good. He was the director of a brilliant film, which later won the national award, and he asked me if I liked the scene,' he says, wryly. Kaikini's deeply engaging storytelling skills were on full display through this talk, as he recounted anecdotes and observations drawn from his own life. The talk, he says, is a reflection 'of things that have enriched my sensibilities in my life… whatever has pushed, moved, stayed with me.' Early life Kaikini was born in the temple town of Gokarna, as 'a premature baby in a hurry to come to this planet. I was always restless,' he says. He describes his father, Gourish Kaikini, as 'an atheist and radical humanist, who wrote about everything and everybody,' adding that while his father could have used his writing skills to become a great novelist or poet, he, instead, used it to open the minds of people. 'My house was a hub of students, art lovers, poets,' he says. 'So I grew up in that kind of environment.' His mother, on the other hand, was a fighter who had to run a household on her husband's meagre salary. 'She did everything to run a small home… take a lottery agency, do LIC agency,' he says, describing her as 'very dominant, which was good.' As a child, he did not like writers, because they would come home and just keep talking. 'I thought writers were useless because they only talk. So, I never thought I would write at all,' confesses Kaikini, now a distinguished writer who has published seven short story anthologies, six poetry compilations, four essay collections, three plays and written countless superhit songs for Kannada films. At the talk, Kaikini also shares some of his other experiences in Gokarna that shaped his sensibilities: discovering torn-up last pages of detective novels in the local library, watching the touring talkies, which would come to Gokarna after the harvest season or watching local theatre troupes perform. 'All these things, there is a magic about unknown…something that takes us away from our routine.' Strangely, this also included the bus stand in Gokarna. 'The buses that came from big cities were another great attraction for us,' he says. It made him think, 'We should also go in this bus some day.' Moving away Inevitably, that did happen, with Kaikini going first to Kumta and then to Dharwad for his higher education, leading him to experience 'three kinds of culture shock,' he says. 'From Kannada medium to English medium, small town to bigger town and home stay to hostel stay,' says Kaikini, who, during this phase, got terribly homesick and found himself going to the bus stand and looking at buses going to Gokarna. 'Every evening, I would feel that this bus is so lucky because it is going to my home town.' Fortunately, literature came to his rescue around this time. 'I started taking part in debates and competitions in small popular magazines,' he says, pointing out how these popular magazines in regional languages have played a significant role in the development of writers and have nourished readers for generations. 'I have a great admiration for them,' says Kaikini, whose earliest short stories were written for magazines like Sudha and Mayura. He still remembers a girl emerging from the ladies' room of his college and telling him that a story he had published in Sudha was very good. 'That was like an Olympic gold medal, and I felt this is it,' he recollects. 'It is very motivating, and I became very popular in college just by writing short stories.' Kaikini refers to the three years he spent in college majoring in biochemistry as 'a transition phase, where I wrote a lot of things', including election manifestos and love letters for his friends.. 'That is helping me now write love songs,' quips Kaikini, who went on to do his MSc in biochemistry at Karnatak University, Dharwad. 'That opened another door in my life…a new door for theatre and cinema.' In Dharwad, as he exposed himself to more and more diverse forms of visual storytelling, Kaikini realised that 'when I am writing, seeing a good film, a good play, reading a good book, there is something that takes me beyond this. And I become one with a collective being,' he says. Art also gives us security because 'it is not done by one person, but a collective,' he says, recalling what his father used to tell him: society is not a tent which stands on a single pole, but a shamiana that stands on a thousand poles. Kaikini also talks about other experiences and reflections that have shaped his perspectives: living in a highly-cosmopolitan Mumbai for nearly two decades; the curious dichotomy of being a writer – needing anonymity, while also desiring fame at the same time; the liberality of temple towns like Gokarna, which draw so many tourists and the spirituality and inspiration he finds in hospitals. He also talks about his family, career trajectory, move to Bengaluru, and tryst with film music. Background score to life 'Cinema songs are the background score of our life,' says Kaikini, who began writing lyrics for film songs in 2003, starting with the Shiva Rajkumar starrer Chigurida Kanasu, based on a Shivaram Karanth novel. His hit song, 'Anisuthide...', for the 2006 Kannada romance film Mungaru Male came about because Yogaraj Bhat, the film's director, was a fan of Kaikini's short stories. 'So he won my heart,' says Kaikini, who agreed to write a song. Bhat, he says, appeared to have had some trepidation when he heard this song, saying it sounded a little like a ghazal. 'They never thought it would become such a big hit,' he says. 'And the rest is history.' Kaikini then shifts back to the present, donning the hat of a social commentator. He points out that we, as a society, are going through very testing times, using the metaphor of a Snakes and Ladders board to explain human progress. 'Our evolution from the Stone Age to here has been a snake-and-ladder game, where in the darkest of times, years ago, there was no education, no light, no knowledge… inequality, all kinds of blind beliefs,' he says. Slowly, he says, education and awareness came, comparing these things to ladders in a society. 'But still, snakes are there.' In his opinion, while these snakes continue to hamper progress, we have now nearly reached the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder. 'But now, as you know from any snake-and-ladder game, at that level, if a snake bites you, you will go back to the stone age,' he says. 'So you have to take care that we don't get consumed by the snake of divisive politics, caste, religion…everything,' he says.
